ABC Airs Terrorist Video Clips

ABC News Thursday evening showed clips from a video warning that there could be another major terrorist attack in the United States “at any moment.”

The video featured a man claiming to be an American member of al Qaeda.

ABC was pressured to air the tape after other news outlets reported that the network had gotten the video on Oct. 22, said ABC News Vice President Jeffrey Schneider. But network executives held off on clearing it for broadcast until they had done their due diligence to confirm its authenticity.

“The challenge was that the speaker couldn’t be identified,” he said. News division execs cleared the tape for airing on Thursday after “the CIA made it clear that the tape had all the hallmarks of an al Quaida production,” Schneider said.

ABC also learned that the FBI had distributed copies of the tape to 13 current and former U.S. government officials named on the video. ABC’s report is available on its Web site: http://abcnews.go.com.